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Hermit Thrush (Photos by Blair Bernson)
There are six spot-breasted thrushes that summer in the United States. The Hermit Thrush is the only one that also winters here. It can be found throughout the year in Washington’s mountains: the Olympics, the Cascades, the Selkirks in the northeast, and the Blues in the southeast. Some birds migrate in late fall to the Puget Lowlands and coastal Washington. This species leaves in spring for its breeding grounds about the time the Swainson’s Thrush arrives.
Insects and berries make up most of the Hermit Thrush’s diet. Insects include ants, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, true bugs, earthworms, spiders, and occasionally small salamanders. It forages on the ground for insects, plucking them from leaf litter and soil. It will also forage by a technique called foot quivering. It shakes bits of grass with its feet to get at insects. Berries are particularly important to its winter diet. They include elderberries, serviceberries, pokeberries, grapes, mistletoe berries and, locally, evergreen huckleberries. When targeting berries, this thrush can be found feeding in shrubs and trees.